Iraq to address Turkey over postponement of filling dam for three months

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi parliament will send a message to the Turkish parliament urging postponement of filling Ilisu dam for three months.

A statement issued by the office of Hammam Hammoudi, deputy of parliament president, said “parliament will send an urgent message to the Turkish parliament to postpone filling Ilisu dam for three months and form a ministeriel parliamentary negotiation delegation to visit Turkey in order to agree on the issue.”

Earlier on Sunday, the Iraqi Water Resources Minister Hassan al-Janabi said Turkey violated the bilateral joint coordination agreements on storing the water in Ilisu dam, established by Turkey on Tigris River.

In a session in the parliament, Janabi said “there was agreements between Iraq and Turkey to coordinate in advance over filling the dams, however, Turkey started filling the dams starting March 1, unfortunately.”

“Half of the revenues of Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq depend on Turkey,” he said adding that “the ministry’s efforts are based on reducing the harms as the dam issue hs become a fact,”
The general secretariat of the Iraqi cabinet said the latter decided taking urgent measures to handle the water shortage at several regions across the country.”

In a statement, the secretariat said “cabinet decided allocating 7.9 billion dinars from the emergency reserves for 2018 to carry out the works of the first phase of a project to set up pumps on al-Thirthar lake.”